236 Observations upon the effects of Frost, 



the dwarf fan-palm, (Chamasrops humilis) has stood for two winters 

 almost without injury. 



It is however remarkable, that in some of the North Eastern 

 parts of England, the cold should have been much less than about 

 London, and in several parts of the South Coast. 



According to the observations of the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, 

 at Spofforth near Wetherby in Yorkshire, the thermometer never fell 

 below 13° with him, or below 10° in that neighbourhood. But the 

 cold seems in this place to have compensated by its duration for its 

 want of intensity. When the temperature relaxed with rain in 

 February, although the snow melted nearly away, the rain froze for 

 about 48 hours as it fell, and covered the whole face of the country 

 with a sheet of ice, which was not long after buried under a fresh 

 coat of five inches of snow, and it was a considerable time after 

 the frost broke up finally, before the under coat of ice was com- 

 pletely thawed. Indeed Mr. Herbert is of opinion, that the great 

 injury to the shrubs was not occasioned by the severest night ; for, 

 when the weather relaxed for a few days, the leaves of the white 

 Rhododendron arboreum were not killed, nor the wood of R. Ack- 

 landi ; but after the snow had returned, the glass fell one night to 

 16°, and the great mischief was everywhere apparent the next day. 

 " If there had not been an intermediate remission of the frost, the 

 plants would perhaps not have suffered so much." 



At Owston, near Doncaster, several valuable facts were noted 

 down by Philip Davies Cooke, Esq., from plants growing in 

 loam on a substratum of magnesian limestone ; this place is 

 situated in a low, not wet position, in latitude 53±°. Here the 

 thermometer is reported not to have fallen below 6° above zero. 

 Among other facts, of which use has been made elsewhere, Mr. 

 Cooke remarks, that he found those plants suffering least, which 

 were most sheltered from the morning sun. In a clayey loam, two 



